


Kept Waiting

by telperion_15



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Established Relationship, Incest, M/M, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-20
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:59:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/pseuds/telperion_15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie is late, and Don is waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kept Waiting

“I have to go.”

“No you don’t.”

  


“Yes I do.”

  


“No you don’t”

  


“Yes, I do.”

  


It was an old argument, and unfortunately for Don, one that Charlie normally won, purely by having logic on his side. Which was ironic, considering that Don was usually the cool, calm, and collected one, while Charlie was the one who got lost in his head with his numbers, spewing out conclusions regardless of whether they were convenient, or even needed.

  


But when it came to the subject at hand, all of Don’s coolness, calmness, and collectedness frequently deserted him. And that was because the subject at hand was Charlie. Or, to be more specific, Charlie’s desire to go to work and leave Don all alone.

  


The two of them had just finished a two-week stint working on a difficult and complex case – a case that had left little time for eating and sleeping, let alone other more…interesting activities.

  


But the case was finally done – the bad guys were caught, no one had died, and Charlie’s math had come up trumps once again. And so the Eppes brothers had finally been able to crash. They had just enough energy between them to drag themselves back to Don’s apartment, order take-out, and eat it before they fell asleep with their heads on the table. And no matter how much the strain of being kept apart had preyed on them the last two weeks, neither wanted to do anything more than sleep until they lost that weird, spaced-out feeling that came from too much caffeine and not enough shut-eye.

  


It was now twelve hours later. They had both slept like the proverbial log, and Don was definitely feeling more awake and alert to the…possibilities he had been missing out on for the past fortnight.

  


Except that Charlie was leaving. He claimed that two weeks consulting for the FBI had left his regular schedule in a mess – that he had students to see, papers to grade, and lectures to catch up on. The CalSci math department could only do without Professor Eppes for so long, it seemed.

  


To be fair, Charlie looked just as disappointed with the situation as Don felt, but Don noticed that it wasn’t actually _stopping_ him from going. And who knew how long students, papers, and lectures were going to take?

  


“Look, Don, I’m really sorry, okay? But I have to go. You know I’d much rather stay here with you, right? _Believe_ me.”

  


Charlie’s voice dropped slightly on the last two words, to match the frankly filthy smile that crossed his face at the same time. Neither of which made it any easier for Don to stop himself from simply crossing the room and hauling Charlie bodily back to bed. And Charlie knew it.

  


But he restrained himself, and just looked at Charlie instead. “Okay, buddy, whatever you gotta do. Just remember that I’ll be waiting here for you when you get back.”

  


“You can’t sit around waiting for me all day. Why don’t you go see Dad? We’ve barely seen or spoken to him for the past two weeks – I’m sure he’d like an update on the case.”

  


“Well, gee, there’s a good trade-off. Instead of spending the day in bed with you, I get to go visit my father.” There was more sarcasm in the words than was strictly necessary, and Don felt bad as soon as he had uttered them. “Sorry. You’re right. Dad deserves a visit. We haven’t been playing the dutiful sons lately. Although, if you think about it, you’ve been less dutiful than me. You live with him and you still haven’t seen him. At least I have a better excuse.” He smirked at Charlie, who looked like he was deciding whether or not to throw a book at Don’s head. Eventually he seemed to think better of it, although Don suspected that his decision had more to do with the possible damage to the book than the possible damage to Don’s head.

  


“I’m rising above it,” Charlie muttered, assuming his ‘I am a respected Professor and will not be drawn into childish games’ face. “Don, go visit Dad, okay?” he continued in a louder voice. “But I’ll be as quick as I can, so make sure you don’t visit him for _too_ long.”

  


*   *   *   *   * 

  


At 10pm that night, Charlie turned his key in the lock on Don’s front door, and opened it to find himself confronted with a dark and quiet apartment.

  


He knew he was late. Even though he hadn’t given Don a specific time he’d be back by, he’d known Don would have been expecting him earlier than this. In fact, Charlie _had_ intended to back a lot earlier, but after three hours of lectures he’d had students queuing up outside his office with questions and queries about their assignments and deadlines. Then he’d only managed to get through about half of the papers he had to grade before Larry had turned up, requesting assistance with his research that Charlie had apparently promised to give him nearly three weeks ago, before Don’s case had started taking up all of his time. Engrossed by Larry’s theories and algorithms, he hadn’t noticed the passing of time until an involuntary yawn had caused him to check his watch and realise that he would be very lucky if he got more than two steps into Don’s apartment before Don murdered him.

  


But Don’s apartment appeared to be empty. Disappointment and relief battled for dominance inside Charlie. Okay, so he wasn’t going to meet his death at the hands of an FBI agent who knew a hundred ways to hide a body, but neither were those hands going to be doing any one of a hundred other more…pleasurable things to him. Don had either got distracted himself, probably by their father and a ball game, or he had got tired of waiting for Charlie, and gone out to celebrate the end of the case with the rest of his team.

  


Sighing, Charlie turned towards the living room, clinging to a vague hope that he might find Don crashed out on the couch or something. But one glance from the entryway showed him that the room, like the rest of the apartment, was dark and empty. He sighed again.

  


Then he jumped as a pair of arms clamped themselves around his waist, and a low, hard-edged voice muttered in his ear.

  


“You’re late.”

  


Before Charlie had a chance to respond the arms loosened slightly and spun him round, before resuming their almost-death-grip around his torso.

  


Don’s face was in shadow – the only part of it Charlie could make out was his eyes, which glittered strangely in the darkness.

  


“I…sorry, I’m…”

  


“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you?” Don cut him off.

  


“I…”

  


“Too long.”

  


The arms tightened their grip further (and was that even possible?), and Don pivoted them both in the hallway, shoving Charlie backwards in the direction of the bedroom.

  


Charlie backed-up as quickly as he could, always on the edge of a stumble, but Don’s embrace (stranglehold?) kept him upright as Don manoeuvred him through the bedroom door, kicking it shut behind him.

  


Another pivot, and Charlie suddenly found himself slammed up against that same door, Don’s arms releasing him at the last moment

  


But he was by no means free. Don’s hands had gone to his wrists, dragging them above his head and gripping them hard enough to bruise. Don’s knee was between Charlie’s legs, his thigh just grazing Charlie’s by-now achingly hard cock. And Don’s breath was hot on his ear as he muttered a stream of words that Charlie could barely concentrate on, let alone decipher.

  


But one thing did manage to register in his lust-addled brain. Don was angry. And horny. And Charlie couldn’t decide if that was a good combination or not.

  


Although right now he was veering towards good, albeit with a side-order of dangerous. Charlie knew he was treading a fine line here, one that it would be all too easy to step over. And what was on the other side he didn’t quite know – it was almost tempting to take that step, just to find out.

  


Charlie suddenly became aware that Don had stopped whispering (threats? endearments? nonsense?) in his ear, and was watching him, much as a cat watches a mouse it knows it has cornered. He swallowed nervously.

  


“Don?”

  


“Charlie.”

  


Don’s voice caressed the word roughly, and Charlie swallowed again, although this time not from nerves.

  


But he couldn’t say anything else, because suddenly Don’s mouth was on his, claiming him, possessing him, devouring him. The grip on his wrists never lessened, but the knee between his legs shifted upwards slightly, making him moan into the kiss. Don broke away instantly.

  


“Don, please…”

  


“No, Charlie.” Don’s voice was flat, emotionless, and yet it sent a shiver down Charlie’s spine. “You don’t get what you want. This is about what _I_ want. You need to be taught to think about someone other than yourself.”

  


Charlie thought about pointing out that he had been thinking about other people all day. But somehow he sensed that his students and Larry didn’t fall into Don’s current definition of ‘people other than Charles Eppes.’

  


Then he realised that his thoughts had distracted him again, and that he was free, no longer pinned against the door, and with pins and needles in his hands as feeling coursed through them again.

  


He still couldn’t see Don’s face clearly, but his posture radiated danger, and it took all of Charlie’s willpower to stand up straight and look into Don’s glinting eyes. He knew there was no way on earth that Don would ever hurt him, but on some level he acknowledged that he deserved some of the anger Don was directing at him right now – he had promised to be back as soon as he could, and he hadn’t kept that promise. And today Don should have come first.

  


“Take off your clothes.”

  


Charlie obeyed as quickly as he could, but when he finally straightened up again, he saw that he hadn’t been as quick as Don, who was standing in exactly the same spot as before, only now he was naked.

  


Charlie couldn’t help it – he took an involuntary step forward, his need to touch Don so _strong_.

  


“Get on the bed.”

  


And Charlie remembered that this wasn’t about what _he_ needed, and he moved to lie down meekly on the bed, offering himself up to whatever Don wanted.

  


There were no featherlight touches or teasing kisses. There was no slow build-up of pleasure, no drawing out of the experience. Don prepared him quickly but thoroughly, allowing Charlie only the ghostly sensations of what his own pleasure could have been – enough to torment, but not to satisfy.

  


But when Don slid into him, and the involuntary words dropped from his lips _OhGodCharlie_ Charlie suddenly realised that Don wasn’t angry with him – he just wanted Charlie to understand. To understand what it felt like to be disregarded. The fact that in Charlie’s case it was normally unintentional was a reason, but not an excuse.

  


But this was a hard way to teach that lesson. In the bedroom he and Don were normally so in sync it was scary. There might be teasing and playfulness, but they were always together in what they wanted.

  


This was different. They weren’t in sync. They weren’t together. And Charlie found he couldn’t blame Don for that.

  


Don was thrusting into him now, and while that gave Charlie some pleasure, it wasn’t enough. But he knew he had to accept the lesson, and almost without realising it, he let the apologies start tumbling out of his mouth, desperate to communicate that he was willing to be taught.

  


“Don, I…I’m sorry…oh god…so sorry…I’m sorry…_please_…Don…”

  


The muttered, babbling words continued long after Don had moaned out his release and collapsed on top of Charlie, his face buried in Charlie’s shoulder and his breathing harsh and panting.

  


“No, Charlie.” And echo of earlier words, except this time they were full of contrition.

  


Don placed two fingers on Charlie’s lips to stem the flow of words, and raised his head to look into Charlie’s eyes. “No,” he said again. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. You didn’t deserve it.”

  


“But you were right,” objected Charlie breathlessly. “I do forget about others – about you – all the time. I just can’t seem to help it.”

  


“But that’s who you are,” replied Don. “I shouldn’t punish you for being you. I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t you.”

  


He chuckled slightly at the expression of almost comical surprise that always appeared on Charlie’s face whenever he said those words. Then he glanced away and the laughter died somewhat. Don had gained his own release, but Charlie was still rock-hard, and his body was twitching from the pent-up desire still running through it.

  


Three strokes from Don’s hand was all it took for Charlie to come, yelling Don’s name hoarsely. Don held him through the tremors until he was still again, and then arranged them so Charlie’s head was nestled on his shoulder, and he could press kisses into the curly hair.

  


“Charlie, I’m sorry,” he said again. “This is not where I envisaged the day going when I woke up this morning.”

  


“Me either,” admitted Charlie. “But that’s not your fault.” He looked up at Don. “I promise to try harder, okay?”

  


“We both will,” Don replied. “Although…do you think you could promise me something else as well?”

  


“Name it.”

  


“Promise me students, lectures, or Larry don’t feature anywhere in your plans for tomorrow.”


End file.
